Larry Ferlazzo

I teach English & Social Studies at inner-city high school in Sacramento,CA

I teach English, Social Studies and International Baccalaureate classes to English Language Learners and mainstream students at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California.

I've written eight books: Navigating The Common Core With English Language Learners (with co-author Katie Hull Sypnieski); Building A Community Of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies To Help Students Thrive In School and Beyond; Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching; Self-Driven Learning: Teaching Strategies For Student Motivation; The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide (with co-author Katie Hull Sypnieski); Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges; English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work; and Building Parent Engagement In Schools (with co-author Lorie Hammond).

I've won several awards, including the Leadership For A Changing World Award from the Ford Foundation and was the Grand Prize Winner of the International Reading Association Award for Technology and Reading.

I write a popular education blog at http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ , a weekly teacher advice column for Education Week Teacher and a weekly post for The New York Times. My articles on education policy regularly appear in the Washington Post and the Huffington Post. In addition, my articles have appeared in publications such as ASCD Educational Leadership, Social Policy, and Language Magazine.

Larry Ferlazzo discusses practical classroom strategies to reinforce four qualities that have been identified as critical to helping students motivate themselves: autonomy, competence, relatedness, and relevance.

Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski explain how English-language learners must develop academic language proficiency as well as communicative competence, and provide a lesson plan they have used successfully with their ELL students.